Today we’d like to introduce you to Schwartzen Precil
Hi Schwartzen, we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
The Origin:
I was born into a Haitian-Immigrant family as the youngest of five boys in Brooklyn, NY.
I was raised with my older brother (only 15 months older) in the Bronx due to foster care taking me away from my mom when I was 1 and my brother was years old.
Unfortunately, I did not have the privilege of knowing my mother until my 25th birthday, and I learned about
Many people from New York knew me as a Staten Island basketball player because of an article my city did for me in high school when I was a senior. (https://www.silive.com/highschoolsports/article/bulls-head-hoopster-made-positive-turn-on-road-to-success/)
The twist:
You might be wondering, how did I get from the Bronx to the remote Borough of Staten Island?
Truth is, foster care brought me there.
A car accident at the age of 8 that damaged my right leg led to an agency investigation that took me out of my Bronx foster mother and placed into a Staten Island foster home that was ran like a group home.
The darkness:
In that foster home I was introduced to heavy gang influence because the oldest male kid was 12 when I was only 8. There were about 6 kids there in total and we were all exposed to the street code most know as “snitches get stitches.” Which meant, we couldn’t tell a word about what happened in the house or we would be hurt. I described it as a prison like that that paralyzed my creativity, my body, but never my imagination. My brother and I were scared often from the guardians and the other kids around our age. Although he wasn’t the type to fight back, even he couldn’t tolerate what he had to do to survive. For me, I fought a lot. Fought in school, fought in the house, fighting was part of my protecting myself physically. Most people can’t imagine what a group home is like full of strangers that you have to close your eyes with every night and hope they leave you alone at night and in the morning. The mental stress led me to join a gang, carry weapons in school and not respect authority. The only hope I had was the hopes of one day playing basketball like those NBA stars on TV. Outside of basketball, I wasn’t creative enough to believe I was able to do anything else. The dark path I took eventually led to an encounter with the police like many of the other foster kids in the house. We seen kids fight with police, break school bus windows and just act as a menace to society. By the time I was 14 years old, I ran away from home, got caught trespassing by the police at a random high school, and I stood before the judge with the penalty of 2 years in Juvenile detention… The fate of many young boys of color who live below the poverty line in my city. My story was no different.
The catalyst:
The judge gave me grace on behalf of my foster family to give me a year of probation which included curfew, weekly drug tests, and no contact with the streets at all. During that time, I joined the basketball team, and the coach and I grew close. That positive relationship I had with the coach was something I never thought could happen for a teenage foster child like me. He helped me get my head on straight, focus on my grade, practice times and things started changing for the better. It was that one of one mentorship aspect with an older figure that placed the seed of hope in me that I could one day do the same to many other young people who came from disadvantaged backgrounds.
The choice:
I earned myself a college scholarship, went away to college, began to live a life filled with my faith in God, then graduated with a desire to be a professional basketball player. I played pro basketball for 6 years on and off due to the pandemic but also knew I had a desire to tell my story to the world (First book: Be Your Own Hero) and help others with their young adult personal and professional development (Third book: Empower The Hero Within)
The choice to want to give back is due to my survivors remorse from my experience in foster care, poverty and inner city struggles. For every one person like myself who goes on to play pro ball and travel the world and write books, there are 1,000,000 people who never got that opportunity or just didn’t see it. I wrote the first book so they can see that a successfully person like me identifies with their struggle and show them how to identify the opportunities that come with growing up in a poor neighborhood. To this day, I still give out the knowledge students and people from disadvantaged backgrounds can understand what it takes to be successful in whatever they want to do but it starts with the power of making the right choice.
The success:
I am a multi-award winning author. I am a nominee for Author of the Year for 2025 (Find out April 25 2025). I have published 5 total books. I own 3 businesses. I am currently a basketball trainer and coach. I am a nation Keynote Speaker and I am currently on a author book tour and successfully putting together a Keynote tour for fall 2025. I have built a strong team of 4 with my main business Hero Leadership Group LLC and continue to impact likes through education in the social emotional learning research driven curriculum that I developed. My most successful accomplishment before marrying the love of my life, was locating my mom, getting the Origin of my family and learning all the history of Haiti and how it affected my mom losing us to the foster care system.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The biggest obstacle I struggled with was finding myself and finding where I belong in this world.
I joined gangs because I wanted to feel included.
I joined basketball teams to feel apart of family values.
I compromised my beliefs in college because I did not know who I was or where I came from.
I was not rooted in anything stable, but once I accepted Jesus, I knew it was something I can start to piece together on what I was supposed to do with my life.
The vehicle use to be basketball as I was great at it.
Now it is authorhood and speaking.
the most challenging aspect now is because I’m a young business owner is continuing to grow my business and scale it.
Something I struggle with still is connecting because I did not connect with the woman who gave birth to me my entire life.
I have to go to therapy to actually learn how to re feel my emotions and learn how to empathize with people all over again.
Sometimes I have a militant style of teaching that can also rub people the wrong way, that’s because I learned structure through the game of basketball and everything was about the team and never about you. So when I teach and lead, I take that same approach. I hold others accountable when they ruin an experience of learning something new by not thinking about their neighbor who wants to learn whatever it is that I am teaching.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
I am currently an owner of a successful speaking business.
I give Keynote events, give value to audiences and engage the minds of listeners.
I am a basketball trainer and AAU coach for players to help them develop their all around skill with the game.
I also help authors become self-published through my author mentorship business called “Be Your Own Publisher”
I am also a spoken word artist that delivers impactful pieces to audiences as a way to raise awareness to foster care and community intiatives.
MY spoken word artist name is “Shway”
Any big plans?
I plan to use my author mentorship business to help other struggling self-published author market their books and navigate in the literary world.
I love the fact that I have some literary talent and I can showcase my writings when I am on tour.
I currently partner with schools and currently in the middle of writing children’s books.
Pricing:
- Books $20-25 / Each
- Author mentorship / Publishing book launch $2,000-$10,000
- Keynote talks: $3,500-$20,000
- Sharing my Testimony: Free
Contact Info:
- Website: https://heroleadershipgroup.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/schwartzen.precil/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/schwartzen.precil
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/schwartzen-pr%C3%A9cil-34a39b13b/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@shwayzebballstar
- Other: https://www.uppermichiganssource.com/2025/01/20/michigan-tech-university-holds-36th-annual-martin-luther-king-jr-celebration/
Image Credits
Credits to Schwartzen Precil
